Lung Cancer

A study found varying degrees of costs and benefits associated with granting early access to drugs based on PFS. In many cases, costs outstripped the benefits.

The best management of distress in a lung cancer patient involves aggressive physical symptom control, attention to concerns about death, and psychosocial support for the patient and his or her caregivers, as well as management of more typical psychiatric symptoms.

A state of equipoise now exists for various surgical options in the treatment of early lung cancer, underscoring the need for shared decision making.

Smaller early-stage tumors may lend themselves to less radical lung parenchymal sparing resections or no surgery at all.

This review looks at the current data and guidelines for thoracoscopic resection of stage I NSCLC and discusses the potential for limited lung resection in patients with the disease.

The FDA has approved nivolumab (Opdivo) for the treatment of metastatic squamous non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) in patients who have progressed on a platinum-based chemotherapy.

A retrospective analysis suggested that a declining proportion of patients with lung cancer would meet the criteria for undergoing low-dose CT screening.

In a phase II study, the use of maintenance sunitinib improved progression-free survival among patients with untreated extensive-stage small-cell lung cancer.

A classification system known as Lung-RADS reduced false positive rates but also decreased the sensitivity of low-dose CT screening compared with NLST standards.

Patients with lung and colorectal cancer who understood that chemotherapy would not cure them were no less likely to receive chemotherapy at the end of life.

In patients with diabetes, the use of metformin did not reduce the risk of lung cancer overall, but the risk was reduced among patients who never smoked.

The US Food and Drug Administration has granted orphan drug designation to tarextumab for the treatment of pancreatic cancer and small-cell lung cancer.

A study of nivolumab compared with docetaxel in patients with squamous cell NSCLC was stopped early after an analysis showed superiority of the study drug.

This one-act play features a patient, former smoker, navigating the CMS rules for lung cancer CT screening in a shared decision-making session with his doctor.

Experts from ASCO and AACR have penned a statement for policymakers on the potential negative effects of e-cigarettes and other nicotine-deliveries electronics.

Adding linifanib to a carboplatin/paclitaxel regimen improved progression-free survival over placebo in advanced non-squamous NSCLC patients.

An analysis showed that etoposide-cisplatin or carboplatin-paclitaxel with RT yielded similar survival in patients with stage III non-small-cell lung cancer.

The FDA has approved the combination of ramucirumab and docetaxel for the treatment of patients with metastatic non-small-cell lung cancer.

In a new trial, amrubicin showed a slight improvement for patients with refractory small-cell lung cancer in the second-line setting.

Cancer survivors are at an increased risk for developing a second smoking-associated cancer if they smoked cigarettes prior to their first cancer diagnosis.

The NLST is a landmark trial demonstrating that implementation of low-dose CT screening lowers lung cancer–related mortality. We must put the study results and cost-effectiveness analyses in the context of the staggering statistics: up to 65% of lung cancer patients present with advanced-stage disease where treatments are often costly, toxic, and only palliative in nature.

The development of CT lung cancer screening, the publication of results from the NLST in 2011, and the grade-B recommendation for CT lung cancer screening in high-risk smokers by the USPSTF raise a number of interesting national health policy issues.

NLST data clearly demonstrate that lung cancer screening is effective and safe and reduces lung cancer-specific mortality by at least 20%. There is no possible reason for CMS to further delay or restrict lung cancer screening for those at high risk.

American medicine is poised for an expanded conflict over the assumption and consequences of risk in medical care.

A small trial yielded “dramatic” results with high progression-free and overall survival using SBRT along with erlotinib for patients with stage IV lung cancer.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services announced plans to cover low-dose CT screening for lung cancer, based mainly on the National Lung Screening Trial.

A study of next-generation genetic sequencing found the techniques to be feasible and useful in NSCLC patients, producing actionable results in a large proportion of patients.

Only 14% of newly diagnosed lung or colorectal cancer patients reported discussing clinical trial participation with their physician, and fewer participated.

The FDA granted breakthrough therapy designation to pembrolizumab (Keytruda), an anti-PD-1 agent for the treatment of patients with non-small-cell lung cancer who do not have EGFR mutations or ALK rearrangements.

A new study suggests that expression of the enzyme thymidylate synthase can be used as a predictive marker for lung cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy.